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Rigging an Audit?
Well,yes, so to speak...
Auditing a client company is a familiar — even commonplace— procedure to DH&S accountants. But when the client is a contract drilling company, and the audit entails a sojourn on an oil rig float-ing in the Gulf of Alaska, that otherwise commonplace procedure takes a not-so-routine turn.
Such was the experience of Dallas accountants Wayne Maynard and Steve Rutherford when they audited the Alas-kan operations of Dallas-based client SEDCO, Inc. Because neither man had been to Alaska before, their anticipation en route to Anchorage last July was out-weighed only by their curiosity.
"Most of the traveling that's done out of the Dallas office is to other towns here in Texas," Steve said. "But a trip to Alaska? That vi as a unique opportunity. I felt fortunate to have been chosen to go,"
During the two days they spent working in the SEDCO office in Anchor-age, the men discovered that much about the 49th state is indeed unique. Their first observation was that the Alaskan concept of a "long summer's day" is a lot more literal than most. "During July, it stays light for almost twenty hours a day," Wayne explained. "The sun doesn't set until about 11:30 P.M. and at 3:30 A.M. it's right back up again!"
"It was also surprisingly warm," Steve commented. "Somehow I had always thought of Alaska as being covered with ice and snow —even in the summer. But during our stay in Anchorage, we were in shirt-sleeves most of the time." The warm weather and near-midnight sun also afforded Wayne and Steve more sightseeing opportunities than they had anticipated.
"Because it was light until late at night, we had plenty of time after work to see the sights," Steve said. Points that both men found particularly memorable were Earthquake Park (site of the earth-quake of 1965), the spectacle of Mount McKinley (highest point in North Amer-ica) and the Portage Glacier.
After two days, the men parted com-pany to carry out the second • and more unusual — phase of their assignment. From Anchorage, which Steve described as being "pretty much like any other city," Wayne and Steve headed, respec-tively, to Kodiak and Yakutat, tiny fish-
ing villages on the Gulf of Alaska.
"The village of Kodiak (located on an island bearing the same name) is ex-tremely remote," Wayne said. "The only ways to reach it from mainland Alaska are by ferry or plane." SEDCO employs a helicopter charter service there in order to transport workers to its offshore opera-tion. After flying for an hour and a half aboard one such helicopter, Wayne found himself a hundred miles out over the Gulf of Alaska and coming down for a landing on the football field-size deck of a semi submersible drilling rig.
'My purpose in going out to the SEDCO 708 was to test count the mate-rials and supplies inventory on board so that 1 could compare my findings with the figures on the inventory records maintained in Dallas," Wayne explained, "And, since there was no flight back to shore until the next day, I had to spend the night out there," Although the float-ing rig was clearly isolated, Wayne him-self was anything but alone during his hours on board. "There are approxi-mately one hundred people on the rig at any given time," he said. "They live in dormitory-type quarters with four people sharing each room."
Wayne observed that the spectrum of ages among workers on the rig was surprisingly broad. About 30 percent, he estimated, were retired military men with specialties in mechanical and electrical work. "1 was told that the rig is powered totally by electricity produced by huge generators oil board," Wayne said, "so you can imagine the complexity of the mechanics involved. Keeping the ma-
chinery in working order is one rig job that's both critical and constant. Painting is another. The exterior of the rig must be continuously recoated to protect it from the elements.
"A number of the workers on board were family men," Wayne continued. "In fact, that wasn't unusual at all. I guess they had just adjusted themselves to that way of life." That way of life means alter-nating four-week stints of grueling and sometimes dangerous labor aboard the rig with four weeks of time off. Although the work is hazardous, SEDCO main-tains strict safety requirements which reduce the chances of injuries to its personnel.
The tedium of the workers' schedule is allayed somewhat by the recreational facilities on board, Wayne observed. Dur-ing leisure hours the men can entertain themselves in a well-equipped game room, see a videotaped movie or use the rig telephone to call anywhere on shore via microwave relay. Technological ad-vantages notwithstanding, Wayne's atti-tude in recounting the details of his experience on the rig was clearly that "it's a nice place to visit, but..."
Meanwhile, farther north off the southeast coast of the state, Steve Rutherford was garnering similar impres-sions of "life on the oil rig" while he vis-ited the SEDCO operation off the coast from Yakutat. Having left that tiny village via helicopter, Steve landed on the SEDCO 706 amid cold and rainy winds. "There was mist all the time out there," he lamented. "The weather was just miserable."
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